A bit of timely trivia. The girl who starred in David Bowie's 'China Girl' video back in the 80's also had a bit part as one of Auntie's Imperial Guards in Thunderdome. This may already be known by some already since it was stated in a Starlog article (#95) dating from July '85, reprinted at the link.

At the time I had no work and I accepted an unusual invitation to audition for Max Mad: Beyond Thunderdome. The gig was to play sax in Tina Turner’s tent.

At the audition with (director) George Miller he said he didn’t want me to play a song. “We know you can play,” he said.

Then they described a scene and I had to play along to it. It was a smoky bar scene so I played something like you would find in a smoky bar. Eventually the whole bar room was fighting and I was playing feverishly.

Three months passed and I thought I’d missed out but then a letter arrived saying I had the job. I played Ton Ton Tattoo and the only thing I wore was a Sumo wrestler’s G-string. Plus I was covered in tattoos which took five hours to apply. Also Ton Ton was completely blind.

They said they wanted to fire an arrow into my sax. I said “you’re not doing that to my sax”. So they had me buy a cheaper sax and an arrow was shot into it.

All the Burning Bridges is not a memoir about the acting life. Readers looking for a detailed and entertaining account of the making of Mad Max should pick up Luke Buckmaster’s recent book Miller and Max.

“I never wanted to write a memoir about the business I am in,” Bisley says. “I wanted to write about what hurt me or what gave me great joy. Stillways was motivated by the troubled relationship I had with my father. I have made peace with him in that sense.” He adored his mother and it comes through in the new book. “These books are a way of putting both my parents to bed.”

So despite The Goose photograph on the cover, it is not until page 101 that we see the words Mel Gibson. Bisley does devote some pages, humorous ones, to his eclectic training at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, where he was accepted in 1975. In his — and Gibson’s — final year they were offered the roles in Mad Max. “From the very first page,” he writes of reading of the script, “the story grabbed me like nothing else I have read since … nothing on God’s green earth was going to stop me playing this role.”

Nothing did stop him, or Gibson, who was cast as the lead, Main Force Patrol cop Max Rockatansky. The Goose was his colleague. The movie did not come out until 1979, so the two stars-to-be worked together in another low-budget film while waiting, the 1977 surfing drama Summer City. Bisley and Gibson shared a house at Bondi Beach at the time and remain friends.

“He is a remarkable man,” Bisley says. “We stay in touch, we see each other when we can, but of course he lives in the US, he works in Hollywood. His ideas aren’t in synch with a lot of people in that town … and it’s good for them to have someone to talk about.”

Oscar winner Gibson is also recognised in a way Bisley is not, financially and artistically. When I ask him if he wished The Goose hadn’t been burned to death in Mad Max but had lived to be included in the blockbuster sequels, he says, “Oh yeah!” He laughs, his sunglasses almost dislodging from their highbrow resting place. “You know, he could still come back! A bit charred and a little wiser.” Yes, and Tom Hardy would land the role. “Yes he would!” Bisley agrees, without too much argument.